Member-only story
Unpacking the Deadly Politics of Shame
The emotion that has led to the death of millions.
(Note From the Future: While I think this article has a lot of cool research, I do not agree with its conclusions anymore. See Historically, Shame Has (Sometimes) Been A Good Thing to read more about how I think today.)
I want to tell you about the time I almost died because of the shame of others. After a long shift, I was eating dinner at Whole Foods — one of the cheapest venues in the upscale neighborhood where I happened to work. I had taken a seat in the upstairs section amongst the plastic tables and chairs they set aside for shoppers to eat, scarfing down food I had hastily purchased from the hot bar.
I had not eaten lunch that day. I was so incredibly hungry that I swallowed a piece of Mongolian beef whole. It lodged in my throat, and I immediately started to choke. I couldn’t breathe, flailing about in my seat, watching people watch me die. No one approached me to help, and one person I scanned in the crowd was even someone I knew — an ex I had ghosted several weeks ago. I remember him looking at me, and then we both immediately looked away — embarrassed to be seeing an ex. So embarrassed I might die.
I didn’t approach any of these people either. Knowing I would have to vomit the food out, I proceeded to stumble to the bathroom — a thing they advise choking victims never to do. Thousands of people die from choking every year. If I had not been a former alcoholic who knew how to vomit on command, I might have joined them on that Whole Foods floor — too ashamed to inconvenience others with the continuation of my own existence.
As I emerged from the bathroom, I found a woman waiting for me at the door. Like many others, she had noticed something was not right, but she had not checked in on me because I was in the men’s room. It was a social custom she was not willing to circumvent, even if it meant my death, and so she waited by the door, hoping everything would sort itself out.
I told her I had been choking, and she hung her head in shame.
“I almost died,” I shouted to everyone in the room. Most were not even paying attention to me, having been trained to look away after a lifetime of uncomfortable encounters.
